Hi! I'm new here, and I just received my new Betta Fish yesterday. He is a beautiful red fish named Rubert (Ruby sounded too girly...) and he is not, however, my first Betta Fish though I would like to consider him so, as I had my first one when I was about 6-7, and I didn't have him for very long. My mom isn't much of a pet-person.

Anyhoo, I noticed that Rubert keeps doing this... Thing... I have him next to my desk, and he likes to swim around circles, and stop and stare at me (which I found creepy at first, but now I feel like he keeps me company). I kept hearing these clicking noises, and began to watch him. He keeps rising up to the surface of the water and... Sucks in air?

You can hear it, and he has been doing this all day. At first I thought he was taking in a bit of air, but he does it constantly. He kisses the surface, and then burps (I don't like using that word...) bubbles out that float to the top, and then randomly for a few minutes he'll go away, then go back and do it again. There is a plant in his aquarium, and he especially likes to release the bubbles underneath the leaves, though he does it at the surface as well.

Of course, I'm in love with this little fellar!
He's going crazy now with the bubbles.
All I hear is "click click click". He's making, what I guess you say is a "bubble nest". He's blowing a lot of bubbles into one little area beside a leaf. It's starting to get pretty large now.

Of course, I'm in love with this little fellar!
He's going crazy now with the bubbles.
All I hear is "click click click". He's making, what I guess you say is a "bubble nest". He's blowing a lot of bubbles into one little area beside a leaf. It's starting to get pretty large now.

Bettas breath air from the surface. They have a special organ called the labyrinth lung which allows them to breath regular air. Their natural habitat is in shallow water with low oxygen, so they developed this to help them survive. This is what your Betta is doing. In fact, it is so important that they do this, that if deprived of surface air, they will drown, so make sure he has access to air.
Also, they are tropical, so if you don't have a heater, please get one - they thrive best in temperatures between 76-82 degrees Farenheit. And although, I said shallow water, that doesn't mean small amounts of water. Their natural habitat is shallow, but long, kind of like trenches filled with up to a foot of water, shallow, yes, but lots and lots of space to swim. The general rule for all fish, is an absolute minimum of 1 gallon of water for every inch of fish, so if your fish is 2.5 inches long, you need a minimum of a 2.5 gallon tank. Bigger is better and easier to maintain, heat and clean. Anything smaller than that and you will need to clean your tank 4 -5 times a week to keep your fish healthy.

Bubble nests are not an indication of happiness, rather an indication of breeding readiness. I have seen very sick fish in very dirty water and some of them almost starving (think Bettas in a vase where they tell you not to feed the fish or ever change the water) to death make bubble nests.